After a 31-year stint on the iconic Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! executed their last choreographed kick in 2016. The show, famous for its elaborate costumes designed by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed critics who labeled it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, nearly ten years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
The Master of Glitz
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his trademark look, clothing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, far exceeding its initial estimate, while a silver and gold fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a publication. “New stars are embracing a theatrical, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
A Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift isn't alone. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by music artists including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across world tours in glitter, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, highlighted against camp sets. Her fashion curator her creative director told a style publication he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, the backup dancers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.
Pulling from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also draw on classic entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The outcome are worlds away from the 1990s era teen pop of crop tops and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.
But some critics are on board with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “treated as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
A Highly Sought-After Retro Style
For millennial and modern stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a collection of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says an archivist, a curator at the an academic institution, who studies the history of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the glamour, the sparkles and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
More Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
She says the showgirl image are key to the imagery of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Chung says they are still employed as an logo of the city, showing up at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Vegas glamour,” the expert says.
The Appeal of Illusion
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a showgirl persona is part of the appeal. It’s something Swift references in a latest docuseries that shows the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting rehearsals, training and 149 concerts across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.
She describes her own showgirl performances as “similar to completing an endurance race in heels every night”. Her headdress was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the performance area from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could rest before I performed. One is working hard the whole time but crafting this image that it’s effortless and gorgeous and ethereal.”
Perhaps this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. Is there anyone better to emulate than these performers, who have always personified dreams, perfection and a universe where nobody misses a mark.
